


Powers of Persuasion

by beetle



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - BDSM, Awkward Flirting, BDSM, Banter, Bloodplay, Bondage and Discipline, Chekova is a badass, Dom/sub, F/F, F/M, Female Chekov, Female Leonard McCoy, Genderswap, Idiots in Love, Lenore McCoy is Sassy, Lenore is a smartass, Mildly Dubious Consent, Minor James T. Kirk/Leonard "Bones" McCoy, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Leonard "Bones" McCoy/Jocelyn McCoy, Public Sex, Public Transportation, Rope Bondage, Rule 63, S&M, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-17
Updated: 2013-05-17
Packaged: 2017-12-12 03:16:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/806565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The five-year mission is finally over, and the Enterprise crew's earned a long sabbatical. A few hours into that sabbatical and Dr. McCoy is already at loose ends. Vinniebatman's prompt was, Girl!McCoy/Girl!Chekov. Formerly titled "Sabbatical."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Powers of Persuasion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vinniebatman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vinniebatman/gifts).



> Notes/Warnings: Set post-mission. GENDER-SWAP! Mentions (and more) of BDSM, Dom/sub, MILDY DUBIOUS-CONSENT, and BLOOD-PLAY. Read the tags.

It's oh-three-hundred, forty-seven hours, according to the TransTram Oakland-San Francisco Depot's ubiquitous clocks.  
   
   
Which means Dr. Lenore H. McCoy has been standing at the far end of the OSF-To-MDC platform, her wheeled duffel waiting against a pylon near the rear wall, for almost half an hour. She's staring holes through the plexi-glass barrier between her platform and the track, and tapping her aching feet impatiently.  
  
  
Her tram is already ten minutes late.  
   
   
That's ten minutes lost from a well-deserved, long anticipated sabbatical that she'll never get back. Not that, at this point, she has much of a sabbatical to look forward to.  At first, of course, she'd been relieved at the idea finally being  _alone_.  Of not having to be  _Dr. McCoy._  Of not having to see the same faces day in and day out. Not having to scream at Jim every time he does something stupid, brave, or self-sacrificing, and winds up in her Sickbay, battered all to hell but—through  _her_  talent and maybe God's soft-spot for idiots and idealists—not quite ready for the stasis slab and a hero's burial.  
   
   
Though she can hardly account for it, she _sort of_ misses Jim already. Misses his chatter, misses his unsinkable nature, his ridiculous faith in himself and his crew and his  _ship_  . . . hell, she even misses his incessant flirting. And said flirting only goes to prove that if you let a man have his way with you even  _once_ —regardless of the circumstances, such as stranded-and-likely-to-die-on-a-drifting-shuttle-craft—he'll think it's an all-access pass for the rest of ever.  Despite the seven sex-less years of friendship before and the determinedly sex-less year-plus since.  
  
   
And yet . . . Lenore finds that she's got an annoying-brilliant-crazy-funny-manwhore-shaped hole in her being already, and she wonders if it's too late to take Jim up on his offer. Not the part about visiting his brother's family in Iowa for a month, but the part about spending the remainder of their sabbaticals together in Maui. Where he'll be surfing, and no doubt laying pipe in anything not moving fast enough in the opposite direction—including  _her_ , if she's stupid enough to let him. . . .  
   
   
Surfing all day and fucking all night . . . it's definitely a Jim Kirk sort of vacation. Fun for a few days, but . . . no. Not really Lenore's idea of a getaway. She's had more than enough adventure to last a lifetime. All she wants is some quiet, some stillness, some actual  _rest_. And _peace_ . . . that'd be damned nice. The last time she'd really got any of those things had been back home in Savannah, the McCoys' ancestral stomping grounds. Before med-school and marriage and parenthood.  
  
  
Granted, going home means she's closer to the few remaining McCoys—curmudgeonly spinsters and widowers, all, and no wonder, with their vast assortment of emotional problems and orneriness—but it means she's closer to Joanna, too. . . .  
   
   
Unsurprisingly, after eight years of sporadic comms, belated birthday greetings and Christmas gifts, after eight years during which Jocelyn got remarried to a woman who not only loves her and treats her right, but one who genuinely loves  _Joanna_  as if she’s her very own flesh and blood . . . after all this, Joanna has decided not to spend her last summer before junior college, and nursing school with the mother she's barely seen since she was nine.  
   
   
The mother who, even in Joanna's earliest memories was blackout-drunk, more often than she wasn't.  
   
   
No, it's no surprise at all, and no wonder Joanna backed out of what would've been most of a summer sharing living quarters with someone she doesn't know, and who if she _did_ know, probably wouldn't like. It's probably a blessing that Joanna's stepmother had more to do with guiding Joanna's formative years than Lenore, herself. She may not be the brightest punch-bowl in the cupboard, but she's a kind, stable woman, and a better mother than Lenore ever was, or could ever be.  
   
   
So though she isn't happy about (anything, really) being replaced in her daughter's affections by a Mom 2.0, Lenore has long since acknowledged that there wasn't much there to  _be_  replaced. Despite what Jim likes to think, not all mother-child relationships can be salvaged with courage, heart, and stick-to-it-iveness.  
   
   
And—at least when she's on active duty—whole weeks do go by during which she can pretend she never thinks about her daughter, or her ex-wife . . . only to run across an old comm from Joanna in her mailbox, or find herself holding a blouse or some tacky, beloved piece of jewelry Jocelyn bought her before their marriage went to Hell.  
  
  
On those days, Dr. McCoy's staff can pick up on what's blowing in the weeds like bloodhounds on the scent, and steer clear of her.  
   
   
Jim's been known to give her plenty of space during those rough patches, and even Spock has learned to relay all official, non-emergency communications through either Jim or Christine, the only two people brave enough to beard the lioness in her den. . . .  
   
   
(Yet less than twelve hours away from the Enterprise, away from a support system—Hell, why mince words? Away from  _her family_ —and Lenore would kill to be back out in the Black, risking her life to save others, caught up in the camaraderie and excitement. Less than an hour into her sabbatical, she finds she'd much rather be sewing up Jim or butting heads with Spock. Getting harassed by Christine to get some sleep and stop micro-managing, and harassing in turn. Misses lunches with Uhura, (who isn't nearly as stuck up and intolerable away from the walls of academe. She usually has the low-down on all the best gossip,  _and_  has been a fount of priceless advice for putting off the sexual advances of certain nameless starship Captains). Misses Scotty's weird, hilarious anecdotes and weirder engineering cant, and Sulu's tendency to philosophize while getting patched up. Not to mention his forays into botany, which'd provided several interesting natural antidotes for what could've been fatal toxins. She even misses the way Keenser would leave odd, metal-shop presents outside of Sickbay for Christine.  
   
   
But more than all those things combined, she misses walking into her quarters on the  _really_  bad days, ready to destroy every damned thing her eye falls on, the very embodiment of 'tempest in a tea-pot,’ only to find a calm, confident smile waiting for her.  
   
   
During those times, the days and nights when Lenore needed something a lot stronger than Starfleet and camaraderie—a lot stronger than any bourbon she's ever come across—to achieve even a measure of peace, there's only one person who's ever been able to help her find it. Nothing quite so quaint as freedom from inner turmoil stilled, but the space she needs to empty herself  _of_  herself, and in that absence of self, create mental and emotional silence as deep as an abyss, and as dark and seductive as oblivion—   
   
   
_Well, that_ ain't _on tap anymore, so don't even go there._  Lenore brushes a trailer of hair off her face. She only wears it up for official functions, otherwise, it's a simple ponytail or French braid.   _Take a fifty thousand goddamn kilometer_ detour _around_ there _.  Worse than mind-fucking yourself into thinking what you two had was more than it was, you're letting the_ memory _of it mind-fuck you!  Damnit, you're_ smarter _than this, Lenore!  If you can keep going on a million light years beyond the point your own child lost faith in you, you can keep going on a_ billion _light years beyond a . . . no-strings-attached, one-year-long kink-fest.  Yes, there were days the kink-fest helped you stay sane, but don't exalt it, or turn it into anything more than what it was. Now that the mission is over, you'd best remember how to live your life without._  
   
   
It's sound advice. But Lenore sighs, and ruthlessly doesn't allow herself to wonder what she'll do halfway into her  _next_  mission, or who, if anyone, will look into her eyes, past her mercurial, autocratic temperament, and see . . . whatever it is Chekova saw a year ago.  
   
   
The sudden bleat of the incoming klaxon startles her, and for a moment she thinks it's her tram at last . . . but the tram that comes chugging in is all the way on the other side of the Depot. The AP-To-AAP red-eye. The only three other people in the Depot board, but no one debarks.  
  
  
Just like that, Lenore's alone. A fine state of affairs, and not at all uncommon.  
   
   
_I suppose I can treat this as a precursor to the next few months,_  she thinks bleakly.  _And Lord knows I got to see enough new faces this evening to last me for a few years._  
   
   
The welcome-back celebration the brass'd thrown for the Enterprise ( **FIVE SUCCESSFUL YEARS! STARFLEET SALUTES YOU, ENTERPRISE!**  the banners, napkins and streamers proclaimed) had been lavish and huge. Bursting with all manner of nonsense and brouhaha, admirals and generals and poobahs of every stripe, clamoring to bask in Enterprise's success. Jim had literally been glowing. Easily the most attractive man in the ballroom, Lenore's personal bias aside—and certainly one of the most accomplished, after Archer and his set. Lenore had been both proud of him, and proud to stand by his side for the evening.  
   
   
The food was great, the music eclectic, the booze (so Lenore'd been informed by no less than fifteen different crew-mates, as she sipped her sparkling cider) top-shelf. Everyone looked like a Starfleet recruitment ad, and there was no dearth of handsome women to ogle and flirt with when time permitted.  
  
  
A dazzling affair, indeed, scheduled from nineteen hundred to oh-one-hundred hours, but of course it'd run long. Is likely  _still_  running. But except for a few friendly die-hards like Scotty, M'Benga, Riley, and of course Jim, there’d been almost no who'd made the staying worth it, really. Her dress reds, though flatteringly slinky, are restrictive and impractical for prolonged wear. The fuck-me heels she's wearing are even worse—a birthday present from Jim, seldom worn, but often gazed upon wistfully, and like the man who chose them, they're eye-catchingly gorgeous. They make her legs, which are already  _damned_  good, look  _fabulous_.  
  
  
But, gorgeous or not, fabulosity aside, they're goddamn killing the Christing  _bejeezus_  outta her feet. Though it  _had_  made Jim happy to see her wearing them, and a happy Jim Kirk is, though she'd never admit it to  _him_ , one of her favorite things.  
  
   
She supposes that's the reason why she wore them, and  _not_ , as she would deny if she was ever asked, to turn a certain navigator's head.  
    
  
And even if she had been aiming to do such a futile, pointless thing, Chekova had been co-opted early in the evening by commander, after commodore (most notably and most often Commodore Lindsey Whelan, who's got a rep for bedding cute, young junior officers. The woman's a lamprey with tits. Huge.  _Fake_. Tits), after goddamn-mother-fucking-admiral for almost the whole night. When she wasn't swilling champagne with Scotty and Sulu, that is. Lenore hadn't been able to catch her gaze even once, and by the time she'd collected her luggage from the coat-room and peeked in one last time, the only people still partying with the brass at that point, if one used the term “party” very loosely, were Jim and his pet Vulcan. Even Scotty had called it a night—which probably only means that he, M'Benga, and Riley had moved the drinking to some local watering hole.  
   
   
Newly-promoted Lieutenant Chekova had long since disappeared, sometime between Jim kissing Lenore while they were dancing some ridiculously  _junior prom_ -esque spotlight dance (they're each others' default pseudo-date for official wingdings, and Jim tends to take the  _date_ part a bit too seriously), and Lenore threatening to castrate Jim with a broken champagne flute if he didn't take his hand off her ass during that same dance.  
   
   
_Huh, that's something needs nipping in the bud before too much longer.  That boy's got boundaries issues beyond countin', and they ain't gettin' any better. . . ._  
   
   
And when Jim realizes she not only left the party, but left San Fran altogether, she wouldn't put it past him to show up in Savannah, even though they'd already settled who was going where, for what amount of time.  But Jim Kirk never considers a matter settled till he's gotten his own way, and Lenore knows  _herself_  well enough to predict, like she's a precog, that sometime within the next few days, he'll turn up knocking on her door.  
  
  
And shortly after that, they'll both turn up knocking on his brother's.  
   
   
“Mary and Joseph, I need a drink,” she mutters irritably. Shuffling her barking dogs around for relief that ain't likely to happen soon. “Or to be tied the fuck  _down_.”  
   
   
“I cannot help you with the former, but I would be happy to assist you with the latter, Dr. McCoy.”  
   
   
Startled—excited—but easily able to hide it behind ten titanium layers of unpleasant go-fuck-yourself, Lenore doesn't even look around. She's in no mood for newly-promoted-Lieutenant-Junior-Grade-Chekova. At least not a  _public_  version of her. Not that any  _other_  version would be on tap, since the damn mission is officially over.  
   
   
“Lost, Ensign?” she asks in her frostiest, most forbidding tone, and she can sense, then see Chekova approach from the corner of her eye.  
   
   
“I am nawigator. I newer get lost.” Cue the charming smile, no doubt. Some aboard the Enterprise have likened that smile to sunlight. But Lenore could tell them that sometimes, the _best_  times, it's more like moonlight winking off a straight razor.  _That_  smile never fails to make her heart beat faster, which is exactly why she refuses to look around. She has no defenses against it. “And ecktually, Doctor, it's Lieutenant, now. Lieutenant Junior Grade Pavla Andreievna Chekova,” she corrects patiently, and Lenore snorts.  
   
   
“Can't imagine how all that slipped m' mind, Lieutenant. Must be the shuttle-lag.”  
   
   
“Must be.” The lieutenant leans on the barrier next to her, pale, square hands star-fished on the glass at shoulder-level. A quick glance shows that she, unlike Lenore, was at least smart enough to partly change into civvies before rushing pell-mell to the Depot. She's wearing a darkish, unbuttoned plaid shirt, sleeves rolled up, and a plain white t-shirt over the dress red trousers she wore to the party. Her close-cropped hair, formerly a nimbus of incredibly soft, mussy curls, is the color of summer wheat under the clinical white depot lights. She looks peaked, and a bit pale, but her eyes are bright and very alert.  
   
   
Lenore shivers, and looks away. But she can still feel that gaze on her, and the weight of a year sitting on them both.  
   
   
“I, em . . . did not get a chance to tell you how lovely you look tonight,” Chekova says after the silence has drawn out to the point where Lenore is tempted to break it with just about  _anything_ , including a pointed  _good luck, and good night, Lieutenant_. “The flag officers monopolized my attention. As I noticed the Keptin monopolized yours.”  
   
   
She lets the sentence hang and Lenore breaks out in goosebumps like an overwrought teenager, but she holds her peace. Even though her heart starts galloping. Keeps holding it, and Chekova laughs ruefully, briefly. “If I were the jealous type. . . .”  
    
   
“If you  _were_  the jealous type, I  _still_  wouldn't have to justify or explain my actions to you, Lieutenant Junior-Grade Chekova.”  
   
   
Out of the corner of her eye, Lenore can see Chekova's fingers are clenching on the plexi-glass, just a bit, and she vividly remembers the protest of muscles, and grinding of bones and cartilage, when it was her wrists getting that treatment. The bruises she'd wear till someone noticed, and she grudgingly healed them.  
   
   
Chekova sighs, and her arms drop from the barrier. “I wasn't implying that you would have to explai—”  
   
   
“Then what  _were_  you implying, Lieutenant?” It doesn't sound crisp and incisive, but querulous and ready to be offended. Lenore'd wonder when she'd started to sound like one of her great-aunts, but isn't sure she really wants to know.  
   
   
“I wasn't  _implying anything_ , Doctor. That was merely my . . . clumsy way of trying to find out if you and the Keptin are . . . serious about each other.”  
   
   
Lenore blinks, genuinely surprised. Then she's just genuinely pissed off. “Jim and I are  _not_ seein' each other, seriously or un—and even if we were, that, too, wouldn't fall under the headin' of 'any of your business,'” Lenore adds snippily. Then she yelps when her arm is taken not roughly, but very, very firmly. Despite her instinct and desire to turn, look at Chekova full on, and—again, why mince words? _Obey_ —Lenore glares at the other end of the Depot—she tries her level best to curdle those distant, damned cream-and-silver-colored walls with the strength of her glare, and fails.  
  
  
Finally, she turns to face Chekova, and is met with an unusually somber expression. Absolutely apropos of nothing, Lenore reflects that she misses those riotous curls, and the way they rounded the angles of that proud bone structure. Without the curls, Chekova looks older, and a little dangerous . . . a little weary. Not at all like the kid Lenore has accused her of being.  
   
   
“Doctor, I . . . the Keptin wants you. This much is already common knowledge,” Chekova begins, taking a deep breath. “The way you two looked when you were dancing . . . and the crew said you were such an attractive couple, that it was obvious how much he adores you.  _Loves_  you, even—”  
   
   
“They  _what_?!” Another fun surprise. Not that people know Jim's attracted to her—she's female, so  _of course_  Jim's attracted to her—but that his attraction to her stands out to the crew as remarkable, for some reason. Saying Jim is attracted to  _any_  woman is like saying a dog likes a specific kind of meat: it's a given that varies only in degree and intensity, from cut to cut.  
  
  
But  _love_?  
  
  
Ridiculous. Ain't a woman born could pin down James T. Kirk's heart, and woe, to she who engages in such folly. Anyone who thinks Jim would not only give his heart to one woman—and even a twit like that flavor-of-the-minute, Yeoman Rand, wouldn't presume so much—but allow that woman to  _keep_  it, is about three gun-boats short of a full goddamn fleet, in Lenore's estimation.  
  
  
And that includes Russian lieutenants, who've supposedly mastered formal logic better than almost any living human being.  
   
   
“You do realize we're back on Earth, right, and not assigned to a mission? That as of nine hours ago, I'm under no obligation to even acknowledge your existence, let alone relieve you of your misguided assumptions?”  
   
   
“Doctor, please,” is said so softly and pleadingly, Lenore wishes she had something to do that wasn't  _looking_  at Chekova like this. “Do you want to be with him? With the Keptin?  I  _need_  to know.”  
   
   
Lenore yanks her arm away, surprised when Chekova lets her. There've been times in the past where that wasn't the case. “I  _said_  there's nothin' goin' on between me and Jim—and anyway, I didn't see you clamorin' to find out who I wanted to be with when that slimy, disgraceful, bottle-blonde slut was hangin' off your arm like a—a—!”  
   
   
And that’s . . .  _not_  what she means to say, nor is it what she  _should_  be saying. But it's like her mouth's been hijacked by the Ghost of Jealousy Present and Accounted For.  
   
   
Chekova's brow furrows in confusion for a moment, then clears—and yeah, okay, that smile  _is_ kind of like the sun breaking out from behind thunderclouds. She reaches out and tucks that same tendril of hair behind Lenore's ear, fingers brushing Lenore's cheek as she does. “Doctor . . . I'm  _not_  interested in Commodore Vhelan.  I would  _newer_  be interested in her,” she murmurs gently, stepping closer, and moving in to kiss Lenore, who turns her face away and steps back. Chekova's lips brush her cheek in the same spot her fingers did.  
   
  
“Yeah, well, she's sure interested in  _you_.”  
   
   
One eyebrow quirks up, and Chekova rolls her eyes. “Yes, she was.  Just as the Keptin is interested in you.  And while I’ve made my interest—my  _lack_  of interest in the Commodore plain to her, and to you, you have not done so to me, with regard to the Keptin.”  
  
   
“Okay.  Apparently saying it twice wasn’t enough for your command of Standard, Lieutenant, so let me repeat myself slowly:  Jim Kirk.  And I.  Are not. Seeing each other.”  
   
  
“I know what you  _said_ , Dr. McCoy, and I know what I  _saw_ ,” Chekova says quietly, and the thunderclouds are back. Her face has gone ashen and mask-like. “You were  _kissing him back_ , Lenore. I was standing there, and I  _saw_  you both, and . . . are his feelings for you reciprocated? Do you love him?”  
   
  
“Not that it's  _any_  of your goddamned business,  _Lieutenant_ , but  _Jim_  kissed  _me_ , and no, I didn't rush to shove him away. But it ain't like I'm married to _you_ , so don't you take that accusatory tone!"  Though something that couldn't possibly be  _guilt_  races through her. Even if she'd  _fucked_ Jim out on that dance floor, it's not like she and Chekova ever agreed on anything like monogamy. "You don't have the  _right_  and, sabbatical or not, I still outrank you!”  
  
  
Hectic red spots resolve high on Chekova's cheekbones, and her jaw clenches, but when she takes Lenore's hands, her grip is gentle. When she looks into Lenore's eyes, there's yearning in them that's never been there before, naked and unhidden. "I was reassigned to the Enterprise vonce I reenlisted, Dr. McCoy. And we both know that as long as the Keptin is Keptin of the Enterprise, you will not be stationed anywhere but where he is. So, since we will find ourselves crew-mates again in short order, I would like our previous arrangement to continue on an exclusive basis. Starting right now.  _You_  will not kiss the Keptin anymore, and  _I_  will not allow . . . slimy, disgraceful sluts, blonde or otherwise, to use me as a lamp-post.”  
  
  
Lenore nearly grins, and has to really bite back a laugh. Chekova's sense of humor is the sort of thing that's invisible till one trips over it and finds oneself blinking up at it dazedly. “You're a cut-up, kid. You oughtta go out on the comedy circuit, not on sabbatical.” She rolls her eyes and tries to free her hands, but this time, Chekova doesn't let go. Steps closer and, with Lenore's heels, the height differential between them isn't large—a few centimeters only, still in Chekova's favor—but she makes Lenore feel small. Intimidated and protected. Imperiled and strangely safe.  
  
  
_Wanted_ and needed, worthy and . . . well, just never mind all these feelings. Lenore can't afford to feel them, period, because the losing of the person on whom they're focused is far too painful to do thrice in a lifetime. And  _especially_  never mind the hesitant, uncertain way Chekova's leaning in to kiss her, or that the kiss is reverent, and  _sweet_  . . . just like the aftercare period of their assignations. The same sensibility that's present in the way Chekova uses the dermal mender to heal scratches and abrasions, the same way she massages the areas that'd been restrained or bound, the same way she'll hold Lenore after she's cried, come, and is empty and wrecked . . . that same sensibility abides in this kiss. And that's what it is, Lenore realizes, that makes Chekova so additive. So . . .  _something_ :  
  
  
She has an ability to take the profane, and make it sacred. Hand in hand with that, is the way she has of making Lenore feel like there's more  _to_  the life she's living now than atonement for the old life she lived so badly. That there's a point of  _redemption_ , however long it might take to get there.  
  
  
Which is crazy. All of it. Crazy enough that when Chekova kisses Lenore's eyelids and her nose, Lenore turns her face away again and lays her forehead on Chekova's shoulder.  Closes her eyes and licks the faint taste of expensive champagne from her lips.  
  
  
“I am wery serious, Doctor.” Chekova's fingers massage her neck, and up into her hair. Work it free from the elaborate, hair- and bobby-pin controlled up-sweep she'd spent half an hour on. The pins themselves plink to the platform unheeded, and Lenore sighs softly, tension flowing out of her scalp and neck like water. “I took the liberty of arranging for a studio apartment in Petrograd before Enterprise got back to Earth. The landlord was wery accommodating, and after we arrive, I can install carabiners in the ceiling and walls, just like the ones I installed in your qvarters on the Enterprise. . . .”  
  
  
“This—you're looney-tunes! How're you  _this_  crazy and I didn't notice?” Lenore laughs a little breathlessly, and Chekova's hands fan out on the small of her back and the curve of her ass—the way Jim'd done two hours ago, only not irritating and much more of a turn on. It reminds her of the times this same hand (with or without various floggers and paddles) spanked her raw, till she was a limp, shaking, weeping mess.  
  
  
It's something she's been afraid to examine to closely—her need for that kind of release. Knowing full well that one day she'd have to do without served to keep her in the moment, to go with whatever games Chekova came up with. For one year, they simply  _did_ , never questioned, or had talked about whatever it was they had. What they were getting themselves into, or what they were looking for.  
  
  
Except for the necessary discussions about safety, boundaries, and aftercare, they've never really talked, but for Chekova telling Lenore how beautiful she looked while bound and restrained, this way or that. Never really exchanged pleasantries, except for the hoarse, inarticulate moans Lenore was frequently reduced to.  
  
  
No, there never was much  _verbal_  conversation between them.  
  
  
After so long of simply going with what felt good (and because she trusted Chekova, always has, though _why_ . . . she couldn't say), for a moment—only a moment—Lenore is tempted to say,  _what the hell?_  Is tempted to just throw common goddamned sense to the wind . . . but like an air-raid savior, the incoming klaxon goes off again, and Lenore straightens. Wonders when the hell she'd put her arms around Chekova's waist, and removes them, shoving at the Lieutenant's hips.  "Stop.  Let go of me."  
  
  
Of course Chekova doesn't budge.  Simply holds Lenore tighter, and kisses her when she starts to repeat herself, as if Chekova-kisses are something to turn doctors into house-cats.  And maybe they _are_ , which only makes Lenore more determined to fight her own taming. So she does the first thing that comes to mind, and Chekova . . . makes a strange, hurt-shocked sound, and pulls away, her tongue prodding the bleeding laceration on her lower lip.  
  
  
It's the first time Lenore's ever drawn blood for non-medical reasons, and it should be revolting, but it's not. She should be disgusted, horrified— _terrified_ , even, of this unsuspected side of herself.  Of another person's blood in her  _mouth_. But she isn't.  She can only stare into Chekova's eyes, which've gone round with surprise and incomprehension, and feel guilty.  Turned on, empowered . . . and guilty.  Not so much for drawing blood—were they on the Enterprise, Lenore has no doubt this transgression would see her disciplined, and no feelings would be hurt, no feathers ruffled—but because here, now, in the real world, she’d made her mark on something that can never be hers no matter how much that _something_ might want to be.  
  
  
And all after that earnest, naked look that Lenore has also been trying her best not to examine. . . .  
  
  
Chekova's face closes off like a switch was flipped and Lenore would step away, if not for the wall to her back, and the barrier and pylon to her left and right, respectively.  She starts to apologize, sincerely, it should be said, but Chekova’s eyes narrow, and that’s all the warning Lenore gets before she finds herself pinned against the barrier. She grunts as the wind is driven completely out of her, and pain flares along her spine.  
  
  
Chekova's body, though leaner, is solid and strong.  Warm, and familiar and  _good_  . . . so good even if there wasn't a whole other person's weight pressed on her, she'd still be light-headed, and fighting for breath.  
  
  
"Goddamnit, get the fuck  _offa_  me!" she demands less than convincingly, and of course Chekova doesn't.  She watches impassively as Lenore swears and struggles, and swears some more.  Leans her head close, as if to whisper some important secret in her ear, but in the end she says nothing, only breathes.  
  
  
The incoming klaxon goes off again, and a minute later another tram whooshes in near-silently, two platforms over.  Barriers go down, and passengers debark from the NZL-To-OSF, some ,chattering and some silent and half-asleep. All hurrying toward the exit and whatever's waiting for them in the Bay Area.  
  
  
The tram's door-warning goes off, then the doors shut. Still, Chekova simply leans into Lenore, hands on her upper arms, fingers biting into cloth and flesh.  
  
  
When the barrier goes up and the tram whooshes on out like a cream-and-silver bullet, still, Chekova says nothing.  The quickly fading noise of the passengers grows nearly inaudible, falls silent with their departure. The PA system announces that the 3:37 a.m. OSF-To-MDC tram is running behind schedule, but should be arriving shortly, thank you for your patience, and for choosing TransTram!  
   
  
Then, the only sound in Lenore's world is soft breathing in her ear.  
  
  
“Sometimes,” Chekova says without inflection, “you can be a real bitch.”  
   
   
“Well, now, I  _ain't_  lauded hither and yon for my shy and retiring sweetness, am I?” Not for the first time in eight, dry years, Lenore thinks it might've been better if she'd never climbed out of the bottle. “Why don't you run along to . . . wherever, and leave me be to wait for my tram in peace?”  
  
  
Chekova nuzzles her cheek and licks her ear-lobe, nipping it just hard enough to sting pleasantly. “No."  And with that she backs them away from the barrier, to the corner where pylon meets wall. Where they're protected by shadows as deep as such a brightly lit place will allow.  Lenore doesn't even bother to try and stop her.  Not that she  _can't_ , thanks to Starfleet's rigorous defense classes, hold her own in a fight. But Chekova has made it plain on more than one occasion that she will  _not_  fight Lenore, only neutralize her by restraining her.  And she's _very_  effective at doing that.  
  
  
“ _No?_ ” If they were still on the Enterprise, this'd be about the time Chekova would not only have her pinned, but would be wrangling her into cuffs and hobbles. But they're not on the Enterprise—they're on Earth, and that makes Lenore as angry as she is wistful. Makes her hate Chekova a little, for reminding her of something she can't have anymore. “Whatever we may have had, once upon a mission, is  _over_. Do you get that? What you're doing now is harassment bordering on assault.  All I have to do is scream, and your career in Starfleet is fucking  _over_. Lieutenant.”  
  
   
Chekova looks up. That impassive face hasn't changed one iota, thought there  _might_  be a barely-there-and-gone flicker of smile. Her thumbs are rubbing slow, almost hypnotic circles on Lenore's upper arms. “Scream, then.”  
  
  
And Lenore does.  
  
  
Or means to, anyway. At least three times. But each time she opens her mouth, all that comes out are frustrated huffs. Genuine fondness warms up those frosty eyes. That barely-there smile comes back, and decides to sit a spell.  
  
  
Lenore sputters, trying to think of a way to temporize, so she doesn't have to put up or shut up (she knows, most assuredly, that it'd be  _shut up_ ) and Chekova snorts, and kisses her again: bloodily, long, and  _hard_. Lenore's fingers clench in Chekova's shirt, her nails into Chekova's side, and it feels like she'd do anything just to have her closer, to be skin-on-skin with her.  
  
  
“You said that what we had on the Enterprise was over,” Chekova murmurs on Lenore's lips, one hand coming up to rest on her throat like a warning or a benediction, and Lenore moans, her eyes slipping shut as hot, hot shame, and hot, hot  _heat_  war for dominance in body and psyche. “And yet, you respond to my overtures exactly as if nothing has changed betveen us.”  
  
  
Words very much not wanted, or appreciated at this point, Lenore kisses her again just to shut her up. Sucks on her lower lip hard enough to draw another surprised sound out of Chekova, and more blood out of the wound. It's tangy, coppery, salty—all the cliched descriptions of blood Lenore's ever come across, and it's not  _delicious_ , or anything, but she finds she likes the taste just fine. At least when there's still the faintest hint of champagne mixed with it. When Chekova's hands are sliding down her arms to take her hands again and squeeze them—not tight, but loosely, companionably.  
  
  
This time, when she breaks the kiss, Lenore follows, or tries to. But Chekova steps back decisively. Cool, unwelcome air rushes between them and Lenore shivers, groans, and glares.  
  
  
“Perhaps you are right.” Chekova grins and there're no straight razors in it, just serious moonlight. There are faint traces of blood on her lips and around her mouth, and she hasn't let go of Lenore's hands, but it's a close thing. She's barely grasping the tips of Lenore's fingers, and her gaze is too bright, and too focused. “So, tell me right now to stop,  _lyubimaya moya_ , and I will stop. If you ask me not to, I will newer touch you again.”  
  
  
Chekova holds her gaze the whole time, and Lenore she leans her head back against cool, smooth alloy. “We both know good and  _goddamn_  well you _never_ stop just because I _ask_ you to.”  
  
  
“This is true,” Chekova agrees evenly. “Or it might be, if you ewer told me to stop and  _meant it_.”  
  
  
"There's a phrase in English you may have heard: 'no means no.'"  
  
  
Chekova's right hand drops to cup Lenore's right breast. Even through three layers of cloth, flimsy as that final layer is, that hand feels warm and sure. “Except when it means 'yes,’ yes?"  
  
  
The silence drags out long enough that Lenore's ceremonial jacket gets unbuttoned, her blouse gets untucked, and that moonlight-off-a-straight-razor grin shines out unabashedly. Chekova runs a finger over the lace edging of Lenore's bra—the top half of silly, frilly, sin-red underwear that Lenore only ever wasted replicator credits on because someone, who shall remain nameless, likes her clothed in nothing but sin and welts—is pushed up damn near to her throat.  
  
  
The climate-controlled air is a little chilly, and she shivers. Though the cause of those shivers changes when Chekova's hands, now brand-, cover her breasts. Lenore gasps and closes her eyes in anticipation. “Lord,  _yes_!”  
  
  
After several seconds that feel like hours, in which nothing else is ventured, her eyes flutter open, and Chekova's eyes are a lot closer. In fact, Chekova's nose is almost brushing her own.  
  
  
"I could do anything I wanted to you, any _where_ , and at any time, Lenore, and you would let me. So, in the interest of not vasting anymore time, _stop_ pretending othervise, and answer my qvestion,” she whispers, and their noses  _do_  brush each other. Hers is cool. “Are you in love with the Keptin? Do you wish to be with him?”  
  
  
“You sound like a broken goddamned hol—oh! Oh, Pav— _fuckohfuckohGod!_ ” Lenore wails, equal parts surprise, pleasure, and pain, when Chekova not only tweaks her nipples, but pinches them viciously, without warning or preamble. And even though she's more than used to this kind of foreplay, every time Chekova does it feels like the  _first_  time: sensation as bright as lightning, as hot as a brand—galvanizing and immediate, like an orgasm.  
  
  
The only thing that could make this perfect would be if she was cuffed and hobbled, cuffs linked to the ceiling, hobbles bolted to the floor. If she were free of the damn dress reds, and Chekova was wearing her blacks (which she looks  _so_  fucking good in), and watching her with that calm, patient expression. . . .  
  
  
Kisses wend their way from her lips to her chin to her throat. Chekova marks her neck with hickies that are really bites, and Lenore's voice, her words, get stuck in her throat, pushed aside by gasps and moans. Only two words make it off her tongue, and barely recognizable as that:  
  
  
“P-pavla . . . pleeee. . . .” Those fingers twist slowly, almost brutally. But reverently nonetheless. Chekova's always been willing not only to give her what she wants, but exactly what she  _needs_. And this . . . oh, God,  _this_  is what she needs, more than just about anything. “Don't stop—”  
  
  
“ _Answer me_ , then.” Chekova's breath is hot in Lenore's ear, her voice is tight with tension, and control that's hard won, from the sound. Control that's normally both flexible and unbreakable, not brittle and crumbling from strain and worry and fear, the way it is now.  
  
  
“Already did, goddamnit!” Lenore pants out, putting her hand on Chekova's nape, scritching her fingers through short hair and trying her best to soothe, though she's never been good at that when the person who needed soothing was her lover. Or her child. And that's the way it's always been, not ever likely to change, Lenore's told herself, and never bothered with  _trying_  to change it.  
  
  
But when Chekova looks up at her, uncertain and wary in a way that she never is, it's like a veil has been lifted from Lenore's eyes, and she finally  _sees_  Chekova . . .  _Pavla_  . . . more completely than she ever has, and below that thick outer shell of confidence (bordering on a Jim Kirk-ish swagger) and control is a real, flesh and blood  _woman_ , not just a tireless supplier of peace of mind and orgasms. A woman with a heart that she's been laying on the line since she arrived at the Depot—maybe since the first time she showed up in Lenore's quarters, smiling enigmatically, holding a leather riding crop.  
  
  
This real, flesh and blood woman deserves all the reassurance Lenore's been too stubborn to give, or learn to give anyone else, even her own kin.  
  
  
“Pavla, I'm not in love with  _Jim_. And if I ever fall in love again . . . it ain't  _gonna_  be with Jim,” she says huskily, and hopes it's enough. Knows it's not everything she wants to say, nor everything she means and feels—it damn sure ain't everything Pavla deserves to _hear_ —but it's the best Lenore can do, for now.  
  
  
Because old habits die hard. But if there's one thing time and experience must've proven to _Pavla_ , it's that Lenore is nothing, if not trainable.  
  
  
The mechanical-voiced PA bleats out something or other that neither of them pay attention to. Pavla searches her eyes for a long time, then nods. Smiles, and it's pure sunshine.  
  
  
Well. Almost. The straight razor look comes back, and a moment later the twisting, which'd all but stopped, intensifies till it becomes almost  _unbearable_  . . . and exquisite for that. Then one of Pavla's hands slides down her torso, resting on her stomach briefly before rucking the knee-length, form-fitting skirt up high enough to expose the silly, frilly, sin-red g-string that goes with the bra.  
  
  
Pavla lets out an appreciative  _ahh_ , her eyes lit up like the Fourth of July.  
  
  
“Hold up, please, Doctor,” she says, and Lenore grasps the hem of her skirt and yanks it up to her waist with alacrity. Pavla examines the lace here, too—for eternity, it feels like—before her curious fingers slip lower, between Lenore's legs, where they pluck at the scarcity of fabric, and stroke and stroke until Lenore's as close as she ever gets to mindless. Pavla's eyes never leave hers, devouring every reaction greedily, her pupils dilated till only the thinnest ring of blue shows.  
  
  
“You're so vet,” she murmurs approvingly, her fingers slipping past laced-edged fabric as if to back-up that statement. Lenore's breath hitches, and if she didn't like being tortured so much, she'd be begging. “So perfect like this, so beautiful. And mine.”  
  
  
“Yours. Yes.” Lenore licks her lips reflexively. Warns herself that a quick, dirty screw in a public place can't solve  _all_  life's problems—can't even necessarily solve compatibility problems, which she and Pavla already have (mostly because of evenly-matched levels of intensity and stubbornness, both), and will no doubt _continue_ to have if this . . . relationship Pavla seems to thinks she wants even gets off the ground. Amazing sex doesn't solve problems. Neither does a soft, pleasant voice murmuring filthy, rather thrilling nothings in her ear until she's ready to fly apart, restrained though she is by metal and leather, bound though she is from head to foot.  
  
  
But it must  _mean something_ , that it's okay for her to be broken around Pavla, knowing that there'll be no well-intentioned, idealistic attempts to reassemble her, or fix her, or psychoanalyze her. Just an instinct for knowing when to gentle the broken bits of her, and when to grind them that much finer.  
  
  
It  _must_  mean something that Pavla can simultaneously be the weight that anchors her, the glue that keeps her from flying further apart, and a stone wall to occasionally shatter herself against. That embodies everything Lenore's been yearning for: a white knight bearing the liberty of chains and the power of complete submission. Pleasure and pain so inextricably combined that she couldn't separate them even if she wanted to.  
  
  
In the end, it could mean nothing—could come to nothing. Of course, it might mean  _everything_ , and. . . .  
  
  
“Come to Petrograd vith me, Doctor,” Pavla says, her customary calm not nearly enough to hide the excitement shaking her voice, thickening her accent, and making her eyes glow. The fingers that ease Lenore's g-string down aren't especially steady. “I will introduce you to my family.”  
  
  
“I—Mother of God, you were  _serious_  'bout me comin' to Russia with you? Wait, what'm I sayin'? 'Course you were— _fuck_! Th-thanks. But the answer's  _no_.”  
  
  
“Ah, Doctor, your lovely mouth is the only part of you that ewer says no to me. And  _sooo_ conwincingly,” Pavla tsks facetiously, applying her finger far too lightly to Lenore's clit. “When ve get to Petrograd, first we rest. Then we wisit my parents, and then, I svear to you, I will spend an entire day reintroducing you to every toy ve own.”  
  
  
Lenore's eyes flutter shut again. But only for a few seconds. She doesn't want to miss any of this—doesn't miss Pavla licking her fingers, getting them wet.  
  
  
Several thousand logic circuits in Lenore's brain flicker, and quietly go dark. “You, uh . . . you still have 'em all?”  
  
  
“Mm.” Another too-light touch, that turns into a heavier, counter-clockwise stroke, and Pavla's other hand flies to Lenore's hip to keep her from bucking and thrashing. “Every one of them.” She leans in very close. “The Alligator clamps.” Licks along Lenore's jaw. “The paddle with the leather studs.” Pavla's restless fingers disappear briefly, but before Lenore can really regret their loss, they reappear even wetter and slipperier. “The qvirt, the cuffs, the leather restraints.” For nearly a minute, nothing but wave after wave of shaking, shuddering, overwhelming pleasure, none of it remotely painful, but still perfect, somehow. “You know the ones I mean, yes? With the cashmere lining?” A prolonged shaky-breathed nuzzle. It's rare that Pavla lets her own desire show so plainly. The rapid decaying of a normally iron-control makes Lenore feel like she's flying. Like maybe this . . . all of it . . . could work out, after all.  
  
  
“Oh,  _lyubimaya_ , I will bind you from neck to wrists to ankles, like the best Christmas present ewer, and make you come and come before I unwrap you. . . .”  
  
  
“Why wait? You've already got me unwrapped. You could make me come and come right  _now_ ,” Lenore reminds her, and Pavla chuckles.  
  
  
“Hmm, and the locking ball gag, most definitely. And the matching collar.” A sharp, playful bite to the sensitive skin just below her ear has Lenore hissing and writhing like a riled copperhead. The only thing she wants more than to come, is to feel like this,  _exactly like this_  forever. “Also I've ordered a few new things since ve got back that I think you vill enjoy . . . a [strappado](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Bent_forward_strappado.jpg).” Pavla sounds smug—and well she should. Lenore 's been hinting for the past three months that she might like to try one, but Pavla had merely smiled, and never shared her thoughts on the matter.  
  
  
Sneaky Russian.  
  
  
“I also bought a genuine rawhide flogger and a white leather corset all the way from Rixx—as soon as I saw it, I knew it was made for you. When we get settled in at home, we will have many packages to open, and many new games to play. . . .”  
  
  
This can go on for hours, Pavla whispering all the things she'd like to do with and to Lenore, all the things she'd like to use on her. And all the while playing her body like a Stradivarius, drawing from it songs woven of gasps, sighs, moans, and even screams, on occasion.  
  
  
But as tireless as Pavla Chekova often seems, she's  _not_  a robot. She's at least as tired as the rest of the crew, knows that Lenore is, as well, and doesn't drag it out. Pushes two fingers into Lenore too fast, too hard, and just right, past clenching muscles and drawing another soft, wavering wail from Lenore. Crooking her fingers to scrape blunt nails slowly, tortuously, _perfectly_  down her anterior wall.  
  
  
It's two seconds, maybe three before the rhythmic pressure and edge of pain conspire to propel her from trembling on the cusp, to a thrashing, trembling, gape-mouthed, head-bonking, unusually silent “O” that turns her consciousness inside out, then hangs it out to dry.  
  
  
She's still aware, however, of many little things: of the slight ache at the back of her skull. Damp hair clinging to her face and neck. Pavla's kisses moving south, light and ticklish, like butterfly wings. The way her knees try to bend and buckle just as Pavla's prescient-quick, strong hands catch her hips, keep her from slumping and her skirt from sliding back down. Pavla's tongue, as clever as her fingers, on Lenore, in Lenore, at last forcing from her throat low-pitched, desperate, almost animalistic cries.  
  
  
Were Lenore still capable of thought, she'd reflect that if Russia has a Girl Scouts Association, this must be what Pavla got her merit badge in: The Giving of Multiple, Cascading Orgasms. Each one is better than the last, until it's all too much.  _For-real_  too much, too intense to be born, pleasure beyond Lenore's comprehending of the word.  
  
  
Until, if she were still capable of  _speech_ , she'd beg Pavla to  _stop_  . . . and for Christ's sake  _keep going_. . . .  
  
  
But she's capable of neither of these feats of irrationality, so she simply comes one final time, and the world goes  _away_ , for a few quiet, dark eternities.  
  
  
When she comes back to Earth for the second time in twenty-four hours, Pavla's arms are around her, just this side of uncomfortably tight, holding her up against the wall. Her breath is a warm, humid tickle in Lenore's ear, and she's whispering things in Russian that have a suspiciously sappy sound to them. As sappy as anything  _can_  sound in Russian, anyway.  
  
  
It takes a while, but Lenore remembers who and where she is, and why. Gets her eyes working well enough to see it's after oh-four-hundred hours, and there are at last a few lonely figures on other, distant platforms.  
  
  
“Fuck, don' lemme go, 'kay? Mighta misplaced m'legs,” she drawls, lifting ten-ton arms to wrap them around Pavla's neck. Her entire body aches and twinges pleasantly (okay, not so pleasantly for her feet), and her nipples are so sore and tender, even the soft cotton of Pavla's shirt makes them throb more insistently. Her insides feel lit up like a pinball machine, and molten like the core of a sun.  
  
  
This is utter contentment. It's . . .  _good_.  
  
  
When Pavla murmurs  _Elya moya_ , Lenore chuckles and turns her head because she wants to see what there is to see in those direct eyes. But she doesn't get to immediately, since Pavla picks that time to kiss her neck and collarbone with playful flickers of tongue. “Lookit me, baby.”  
  
  
This time, Pavla's the one to obey instantly, her eyes like a summer sky after a sudden rainstorm, shining and happier than Lenore's ever seen, and she smiles, leaning in to kiss her. She can still taste champagne and blood, under the fresher taste of herself, and a few johnny-come-lately aftershocks makes themselves felt body-wide. “Goddamn, but you are indeed a  _fine_ navigator, Lieutenant Junior-Grade Chekova, Pavla Adreievna.”  
  
  
“Vha— _oh!_  Hah. Vell. Em. Not that there was a galaxy vorth—em,  _worth_  of maneuvering room, but . . . I know your body better than my own.” Pavla kisses her temple, and Lenore is suddenly sad that she can't say the same. That though she's seen and touched every part of Pavla's body, she's not nearly as conversant in what gets her off. What turns her into a mindless animal, besides S&M, and dominance games.  
  
  
_Maybe it's time that changed, too. Hell, I never even took the time to find out where she's_ ticklish _, if anywhere, and she thinks she wants to go steady with me? A selfish, damned_ _Pillow Princess_ _? Show me around the home-town and introduce me to the folks? Crazy kid. . . ._  “You really are nuts, Lieutenant. I like ya, don't get me wrong. I like ya a _lot_. But you're nuts.”  
  
  
“ _Me_? Hah! I do not know which is more nuts: that you force me to force you to come, or that you're forcing me to force you to  _come . . . . home with me._ ” More kisses on her temple, in her hair, and Pavla's blushing just a little. The tip of her nose is pink. “No matter. It is settled. You _will_  come to Petrograd with me, and you  _will_  meet my family. You'll be as charming and gracious and vitty as you were at the celebration tonight. My parents  _will_  be qvite taken with you. End of story.”  
  
  
These are not questions, and Pavla definitely doesn't seem to require an answer.  
  
  
So Lenore lets herself be straightened out, her bra pulled down and adjusted, her blouse rebuttoned and retucked, her g-string pulled up and her skirt pulled down. Her legs are still rubbery, her body still shaking, but it doesn't matter, since Pavla isn't letting go of her.  
  
  
They look each other in the eyes for a long time, and even so, Lenore couldn't say what she was thinking or feeling, other than wrung out and happy. She's used to the former, but not so much the latter.  
  
  
“My Mma and my Papa really do vant wery much to meet you, Doctor,” Pavla says, little flashes of that uncertainty back in her eyes. “They have for some time.”  
  
  
Lenore shakes her head bemusedly. “Why on Earth  _is_  that? Why would you tell them anything about me, and  _what_  did you tell them?”  _Not the truth, I'm presuming. Not that I either ignore you, pretend I don't know you, or treat you like shit except for when you have me bound and restrained, and begging to be hurt._  
  
  
“I tell them about you because I—” Pavla pauses, biting her lip and clearly coming to some sort of decision. “I tell them that my girlfriend is vonderful and beautiful. That I like her wery much, and that I will bring her to meet them as soon as ve get home.”  
  
  
“Huh. Awful lot of faith in your powers of persuasion there, Ensign.” It's all Lenore can say, since she can't say the l-word. At least not yet. Hopefully this is something Pavla can understand with all the precise instinct she's brought to bear on their relationship so far.  
  
  
“It's  _Lieutenant_  now, Commander McCoy,” Pavla repeats quietly, but with pride. Then she smiles again, and it's sunshine, sunshine, sunshine, straight to Lenore's heart, even as she remembers Pavla's not the only one who got promoted, though the idea that she and Spock are now closer in rank is . . . amusing. “And it's not my powers of persvasion in which I have such faith.”  
  
  
Just as they meet each other halfway for a kiss, another klaxon starts ringing over the PA. Pavla groans. “Ai, this must be the tram you vere vaiting for.”  
  
  
“Mus' be,” Lenore sighs, as the tram zooms in, all gleaming silver and cream surfaces. It zooms back out in under a minute, having discharged a clutch of wired, tired, rushed passengers halfway up the platform. She and Pavla listen, without speaking and without breaking eye contact, as the tram and the passengers go.  
  
  
“Is the Siberian Line far from here?” Lenore asks when the last of the passengers are distant, nonsensical noises. “My feet're killin' me.”  
  
  
“Not far at all.” Equally calm, matter-of-fact voice that can't quite hide sudden excitement. Not so sure as all  _that_ , after all. “On the trip to Petrograd, I'll give you vorld famous Chekov foot massage.”  
  
  
_World famous, indeed,_  Lenore thinks, and kisses Pavla lightly on the lips. It doesn't stay light for long, or tame, and it ends when Pavla pulls away grinning.  
  
  
Lenore licks at the trickle of blood coming from her bottom lip. The cut stings like a beast, shooting tremors all through her body. She can't look away from those eyes—from the moonlight-and-straight-razor grin that only she gets to see. The grin that's wavering as Pavla stares at Lenore's mouth, licking her own lips, her breathing noticeably accelerated.  
  
  
“Darlin', there ain't  _no_  conceivable reason why you shouldn't be kissin' me again,” Lenore notes, and Pavla, never one to ask permission twice—or once, really—hauls her close and kisses her _hard_ , though there's more sucking at the wound than actual kissing, and every time Lenore whimpers, or digs her nails deep into shirts and shoulders, Pavla's body shakes and jerks against her.  
  
  
BDSM kink? Check.  
  
  
Blood-fetish. . . ? That's a _double_ -check, and a big ten-four. As in ten-point-four on the Richter Scale of things that make Pavla Chekova come without being touched. And  _silently_ , except for a few words in Russian, choked out through gritted-teeth, her face hidden against Lenore's neck. . . .  
  
  
When it's over, Lenore leans them back against the wall, fingers scritching at Pavla's nape once more. Bearing her weight not quite easily, but well. Another tram comes and goes on the next platform. More people start appearing on the other platforms and Lenore's, from the sound. In a little while, it'll be time to move on.  
  
  
After another few minutes, Pavla takes an unsteady breath and murmurs something that . . . _probably_  isn't  _love you, Elya_. Probably.  
  
  
Raking her nails through wheat-colored fuzz, Lenore wonders in what ways she'll have to submit to convince Pavla to grow her hair back out. Knows that whatever she has to do will not only be worth those lovely, fluffy curls, but enjoyable as well. “Say, there, Lieutenant . . . are you at all ticklish?”  
  
  
Formerly relaxed, noodle-limp muscles tense up. Not much, but enough to answer Lenore's question. “Em—teeklish?  _Nyet_. Not at all, Doctor. Not teeklish.”  
  
  
“Hmm.” Lenore licks a trace amount of blood off her lips and forces herself not to prod at the laceration with her tongue. There'll be time enough for that when they get home. “I do believe that's a  _whopper_  of a fib you just told a senior officer. But the truth'll have to wait for later. For now, lay on, MacDuff. And I do believe I'll hold you to that foot massage.”  
 

 

END


End file.
